My Name Is Justice, But I'm JJ
by Tessandria
Summary: Tracking The Five's had been hard, and their connections with the cops hadn't helped. When I finally found them, I expect to walk away with a little blood and another half dozen kills to add to my resume. I hadn't expected to walk away with a scared little girl who warned me that her father and uncle were big scary men so I had better be nice. No, this wasn't what I expected at all


They called themselves the Fives. I had been hunting them for nearly three months now. They were good. Well, they were good at hiding. Their leader was a balding man with more tattoos then I cared to count and a serious alcohol problem. The half dozen men in his crew were just the same, inked up to the gills and wallowing in booze. Although it had taken me a while to locate all of them and find a time when they would all be together, I had done it.

They were in Minnesota when I caught up with them. On the north west side of Rochester. The locals called it the Med city, not that that mattered to the mission, but I liked to familiarize myself with the area before I engaged in a task. I cornered them around three a.m. in a back alley between and old factory and an empty lot. They beat up van they had been driving had mysteriously gotten a flat tire and I would hazard a guess that a certain mechanic who owed me a favor had overlooked the issue with their brake lines.

They knew it was me the moment they laid eyes on me. Stepping out of the car I had borrowed from a wealthy banker three states away, I made quite the threatening image. Or so I gathered as one of the men turned white as a sheet and bolted. I took him down first. Two shots to the back and the world had one less raping asshole in it. From there things got a little more interesting. Suffice to say that fifteen minutes later I had seven of the men laying dead around me and blood was seeping from a wound in me right arm.

I dabbed at the area. One of them had grazed me, I could see the gash would need to be wrapped, but if I was lucky I wouldn't need stitches. I wiped the blood on my pants and turned toward the truck. Their leader was still unaccounted for and I was more then ready to send him to the grave and find a motel and a bottle of Jack.

The vehicle in question sat not far away. The back doors hung open, rust gathering on the edges and the bumper bent out of shape by several unfortunate accidents. Adjusting my grip on my pistol I stepped forward, edging around so that I could see into the back of the van.

"Stop!"

There he was. Their elusive leader. Crouched in the back of the van like the cowardly rat he was. But that wasn't what made me stop. In his arms he held a little girl. She was small, couldn't be more then six at most. She was filthy, her face bruised and blood caking her lip. Her eyes were filled with tears and against her temple, that son of a bitch held his pistol.

"Easy now." I said, slipping further around the doors till I had a clear line of sight into the vehicle.

"Stop! I mean it! I'll shoot her!" He was sweating with fear, the gun trembling slightly.

"No need for that. I'm not moving." My gun was still trained on him.

"Good, good. Stay right where you are."

"Okay. I'm staying. How 'bout you move that gun a little farther away from her, huh?"

"No!" He tightened his grip on the weapon. "I'm in control here. I have a hostage! You can't tell me what to do!"

"Yeah, sure. Your rules, okay." I kept me weapon trained carefully on him. I just needed him a little farther away. I knew I could sink a bullet between his eyes if I had just and inch or two more room.

"That's right. My rules. Put the gun down." He said, and I could see him starting relax a little.

"I can do that, but you gotta work with me here, man." I said, inching a step closer, almost there now,

"No, I have a hostage! Put it down!"

"Okay, I will. Just let her go a I'll put the gun away, you have my word." I bargained.

He eased the girl a little forward, her eyes were squeezed tightly closed. He inched back, pushing her towards me. Perfect. I was so close.

"If I let her go, you let me go, right?"

"You let her go, and you'll never see me again. I swear." I said.

He pushed her forward again and there it was. My window. I squeezed the trigger and a moment later he fell back, a red dot appearing between his eyes. I grinned.

"Told yah you'd never see me again." I said.

The girl's sobs brought me out of my victorious haze. The grin fell from my lips and I hurried forward, tucking my gun into it's holster as I went. She shied away from me when I drew near her. I drew up short, stopping a few feet from her.

"Hello there."

She huddled against the side of the van, trapped between me and the lifeless body of her captor.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, girl." I said soothingly. "Okay?"

She watched me fearfully over her knees, drawn up close the her chest, her little arms wrapped tight around them.

"Do you have a family?" I asked gently, trying to appear as friendly and trustworthy as I knew how.

This got a response out of her. Still fixing me with a wary gaze, she nodded.

"Do they know where you are?" My next question seemed to make her worried and she clutched her knees closer to her, kidding her face in them.

"Hey, hey. It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt them. Or you. Okay? Nobody's gonna get hurt. I promise." I winced at that, remembering my last few promises. Whoops.

She seemed to recall them as well. I could see her knuckles turning white where the had twisted them into her jeans. The article in question was ripped in several places, splattered with mud and a dark red substance that I knew all to well what was.

"Damn." I muttered.

She flinched.

I bit back the next swear word that threatened to emerge and focused instead on the child before me.

"Come on, girl. I can help you, okay? I can take you to see your family, but you gotta help me out. Can you do that?"

 _Come on._ I pleaded mentally. _Just let me get you out of here._

This time she seemed to perk up a little. She raised her head a fraction, and her little blue eyes peaked out at me.

"Do you miss you Mom?" I asked.

She nodded.

"I miss my Mom too." I edged closer.

Her head came up a little more and her grip on her legs eased a fraction.

"I bet your Mom is really tough. You look like a tough girl."

This statement brought forth a little quirk of the mouth, not quite a smile, but a damn sight better then the flinching from before.

"Do you think you Mom misses you too?" I asked.

Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. She nodded again, releasing her knees to scrub at her eyes.

"Hey, hey, I got yah." I held out my arms and to my releif she crawled toward me and into my arms.

I lifted her out of the van and tucked her head down to my shoulder, rocking her slightly as I turned and headed for the car. I set her down gently in the back seat and pulled the emergency blanket from the trunk, spreading it over her small form. Slipping in behind the wheel, I put the car in drive and quickly left the scene, blood oozing from my arm and I little girl asleep in the back seat.

It had been one hell of a day.


End file.
